Monday, 31 December 2007

Good Riddance

I was going to take my lead from the New Yorkers, who have been holding "Good Riddance Day", putting the things they're glad they're leaving behind with the new year into the bin. But I couldn't think of anything. Not that there's nothing I'd like to see the back of, but most of those things will be with us in 2008, unfortunately.

War and Unrest - I know I'm risking (i) sounding like a Miss World candidate, and (ii) being serious, but it doesn't seem right to list bad things without thinking about all the deaths that have been needlessly caused this year.

London - This should have gone out with the 20th Century. With modern communications we don't need over 1/6th of our population crammed into one small corner without enough water or land. They say global warming is going to finish it off, but it's taking far too long about it.

Post Offices - These should have gone out with the 20th Century. With modern communications we don't need over 1/6th of our population standing in queues at any given time. Privatisation of the Royal Mail will eventually finish them off, but it's taking far too long about it.

Commas - If we all learned to write without using commas then we would save a fortune in legal bills although we'd also all have to learn to write using longer words and there would be a lot of unhappy lawyers (hereafter and heretofore referred to as unemployed).

Sleep - Wouldn't it be great if we could have an extra third of a day? There would no longer be any excuse for missing a day posting on your blog.

Work - Wouldn't it be great if we could have an extra third of a day? There would no longer be any excuse for missing a day commenting on everyone else's blogs.

Spam - I know that I and many others are making women's lives less fulfilled by not having enlargements and Duracell pills, but...

Different Times - I definitely want Summer Time (the time, not the season) abolished. The only reason given for it is that the schools open an hour earlier - Er, you can do that without putting the clocks forward. Duh! But then, while we're at it, why don't we all just move on to GMT? After all, the time difference across the Atlantic hasn't been stopping other people getting the first comment in on Bee's blog.

Actually, They always say that they want to win so they can promote world peace, so I think they should stick them in the middle of battlefields to stop the fighting. Most soldiers wouldn't shoot down a young woman in a bikini.

* And the new Miss World is* 1/6 of the population is in London ? we should move some of them to China, I'll spray a can of Aquanet into the sky later today.

* Anyone not smart enough to avoid the post office deserves to be miserable.

* I like to sleep, I've done amazing things in my dreams...Jessica Alba, Shakira.My dreams feel so real somtimes I can say that I know what it feels like to fly, I barely know what to do with the 2/3 of my day now , why add more ?*Work, I agree, I need more sleepy time.* What is GMT ?

You should have been a cat ;-)Nothing that exciting happens in my dreams, unfortunately. Usually they involve commonplace situations but with the geography all wrong.

GMT is Greenwich Mean Time - the standard global time from which everything else is referenced. Greenwich is just outside London and has a famous Observatory, and the "Mean Time" dates back to when each town had slightly different time zones (since they used the sun as a reference). UK time is GMT in the winter and GMT+1 in summer. Some Europhiles would like us to be an hour ahead to match France, but so far, thankfully, this hasn't happened.

I'm having an exciting evening of partying too - I'm sitting here with a glass of Cava watching the RIK New Year programme. Another hour and a quarter until New Year (Eastern European Time). Once I become dictator and abolish time zones I'll have to stay up 2 hours later at New Year... I hadn't thought of that...